Have my pupils ‘got’ it?

Hello Colleague

In a recent post ‘I might have taught it, but have they got it?’ I argued that the fact I have taught something doesn’t necessarily mean that my pupils have learnt it.

This was particularly brought home to me when I was chatting to a pupil about what she was learning in her English lessons. We were going through some of her work, and she was telling me what she was particularly pleased with.

I noticed that she had been learning about homophones a few lessons earlier.

I assumed she had learnt about them, because she had completed a worksheet which had been ticked off, with a smiley face and stuck into her book, no doubt having turned some spreadsheet green for that objective.

‘Ooh homophones’, I said, ‘those are interesting! Is there anything you’d like to tell me about homophones?’

She couldn’t tell me anything. Even though she was a high attaining pupil.

Why was this?

Well, it was because the completion of the task was more important that whether she had really learnt about homophones.

We can shift this very quickly.

Instead of saying ‘Have you finished?’ we might say ‘Tell me what you’ve learnt.’

It’s irrelevant whether an exercise has been completed, it only matters if the child has learnt something.

I’ve done a series of short recordings on Myatt & Co on helping pupils to learn the curriculum. You can check them out here.

Until the next update.

Mary